New York, NY, June 26, 2017 … The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) today expressed disappointment that the Supreme Court ruling on President Trump’s travel ban, while opening the doors to some foreigners, shut the door on some of the world’s most desperate refugees. While rightfully recognizing limitations on the president’s authority on immigration, the ruling disappointingly places refugee lives at imminent risk of harm.

Agreeing to review the merits of the case later this year, the court lifted the stay of the ban as applied to foreigners from the six specific Muslim-majority countries referenced in the Executive Order who do not have ties or relationships to Americans or American institutions. That distinction protects the plaintiffs who brought the cases and those in a similar position, but not those without any connections applying for visas for the first time.

Jonathan A. Greenblatt, ADL CEO, issued the following statement:

We were pleased that the court appropriately recognized that there are limitations on the president’s authority when it comes to immigration generally. But the court’s failure to recognize the plight of the world’s most endangered refugees – those fleeing countries where their lives are in imminent danger – is profoundly disappointing.

Closing the door to refugees whose very lives are at stake has echoes of when the United States refused to provide refuge and turned away Jews aboard the St. Louis who were fleeing the Nazi Holocaust during World War II. We should not turn back the clock to a time when refugees were stopped at our borders and turned away. That is an outmoded and inhumane policy when we know that people are in danger and children are suffering, starving and dying in conflicts overseas.

Continuing our longtime advocacy on behalf of immigrant rights, ADL will oppose the discriminatory Muslim ban as the court hears the case this fall, and we expect the court will ultimately strike it down.

The Anti-Defamation League was founded in 1913 to stop the defamation of the Jewish people and to secure justice and fair treatment to all. Today it is the world’s leading organization combating anti-Semitism, exposing hate groups, training law enforcement on hate crimes, developing anti-bias education programs for students, countering cyber-hate and relentlessly pursuing equal rights for all.